


Quelea Qualia

by LucyBrown45



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M, Obscurial, seance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 00:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12544828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyBrown45/pseuds/LucyBrown45
Summary: Trick 32 Prompt: Victorian AU. Credence is a medium/spiritualist. Graves is a sceptic.





	Quelea Qualia

The kitchen is morning fresh. Cold, but with the promise of spring warmth later. Patience, later. The tall, thin windows peek up from below the yard and out onto the grey street. Through the iron railing, there are no boot shadows yet, it is too early. This is the only time of day that the small room blooms with light. It strolls around the yellow walls, pats friendly against the pine china cabinet and lounges across the stone floor.

Percival Graves squints at the intrusion. Allows himself to turn his head, warm his face in the generosity of day. He gently taps the edge of his teaspoon on his coffee cup. The china tinks in protest. Today, in this light, Percival looks down at the floret green pattern around the rim and encircling the saucer. It’s naïve. And was probably cheap. The corner of his mouth pinches with amusement. He always got away with it. 

Buying things he liked, instead of things that suited the house or were in fashion. Percival sighs. There’s a grey hairline crack spiked from the soft curve of the handle. He places the small silver spoon in the bed of the saucer and cups it in his palm, shifting it in semi-circle movement. He puts his hands in his lap. Tilts his head up, chin to the sun, closes his eyes.

“You’ve bought a bird?”

“No, look.” Theseus hefts a gilt cage onto a walnut sidetable. It wobbles uncertainly. He turns a key protruding from the back of the enamel base. Painted tin leaves jutter in a circle around the floor of the cage, revealing a red speckled bird. Beak open, singing. It’s wings tapper and the branch it sits on appears to move with it. 

Theseus grins at Percival. Percival’s huffs a laugh, shaking his head, cynical eyebrows smooth affectionate. He reaches his hand out to Theseus. He ambles out from behind the table. He’s excited. He’s lost concentration, dragging his leg behind him, the wood of his foot bumping softly against the thick carpet. He falls artlessly into Percival’s arms.

Percival holds him close by the waist and sways them gently to the mechanical clank of the automaton. “Where did you get this?” He asks, chin hooked over Theseus’s shoulder, bemused by the ugly toy. 

Theseus tucks a quiet kiss to his neck, mouth just touching the skin, lips sticking to the cotton of his collar. “I travelled to India and made my way through the jungle until I spotted her hiding in a laurel bush.”

“Oh. How very intrepid of you.”

Theseus hums into Percival’s clavicle before tipping his jaw up. Percival kisses him. 

He opens his eyes. The sun is settling into the morning. Clouds curving at the edges. Percival sighs. He putters to the breadbasket and takes a barm. He drags the simple wooden chair away from the table and sits back down. He untucks his teacup from the saucer and uses it as a plate. He tears the bread in half and heartlessly picks at its soft middle. He’s not hungry. 

“What are you doing, Mister Graves? What are you doing?” Emily is a young lady with an accent she tells him is Irish. Percival has accidently let her slip into his life. Lets her nanny him and commandeer his home. Requests she sweeps and instead receives battered cod and a stew that is both sweet and tingles his throat. He’s not sure this is suitable faire for a gentleman, but he has no appetite and thinks if he won’t eat then she should be able to eat what she is accustomed to. 

“You can’t keep eating in the kitchen.” She puts her hands on her hips and surveys the room. “In the dark.” She spots his crumbs. “Like a mouse.” 

He raises an eyebrow at her. She is cheeky. Percival stands and brushes his palms over his waistcoat. “I’m leaving now.”

Emily folds her hands in front of her and nods neatly. He climbs the stairs to the first floor of the house and hears Emily’s boots clatter on the red tile of the hall as he pulls his coat on. She stands close to an aspidistra that Theseus’s brother gifted to them. She curtsies low. It is sincere. She keeps her eyes on the ground. “Have a good day, sir.”

He appreciates her presence. “Thank you, Emily.” He finishes hooking his buttons. “You’ll have supper ready.” He tries to keep his tone flat. Takes his silk hat from the stand. 

“Yessir.” 

He opens the door. The city has awoken. The smell of rain forthcoming catches his nostrils under the scent of glue and rubber and beer and horses. He sucks a breath in between his teeth. Emily, hovering silently behind him does not reach her hand out to steady him, but steps towards the cast iron umbrella stand. Her movement catches his eye and he leans back to take the cane topped with a carved bird, wings outstretched. 

He meets Emily’s eye and shakes his head before stepping out into the world. He walks briskly, the tip of the walking stick lingering behind his heels. Sweat prickles at his underarms and the small of his back. He is exerting himself and at the discomfort, he slows. Suddenly aware that there is no rush. 

The cobbles are cluttered with pigeons and their knowing coos unsettle him A bruise stained bird putters at his steps. Startling away at the swish of the edge of his coat. 

Doctor Mycert is man who always appears flushed. Spots of pink dapple his cheekbones and creep up to the tips of his ears. Percival thinks it comes from caring too much. His temperature running high with his fervour to fix society’s ills. “The Enrolment Act has passed.” He thrusts _The New-York Times_ down onto the large desk in front of him. 

Percival lurks near the door through which he entered and tilts his head. Out the office window he can see clearly the courtyard of the hospital. A girl with long hair is morosely tugging a tall, frail man by the hand around the perimeter. Their smocks are shabby and over-washed. 

The doctor follows Percival’s absent mind and turns to observe the pair. “I suppose we can hope it won’t affect the children.”

Quite unexpectedly, Percival feels the need to sit down. He stumbles over the cane, inelegantly tumbling into the soft burgundy leather of the visitor’s chair. Dr Mycert pats him on the back, just below his neck. “I’ll call Helen for tea.” He pulls at a bell rope just behind the door. 

Percival rubs his palm over his knee and grimaces at the tone of Dr Mycert’s voice. He narrows his eyes as the man sits at his desk across from him. “It’s getting worse.”

Dr Mycert purses his lips and looks up at the decorative whorls in the ceiling. He crosses one leg over the other. He taps his forefinger against the side of his cheek. “Tell me about that.”

Percival slumps back into the chair and lets a long sigh escape. He feels foolish. He rubs his knee again and looks around for the cane. He retrieves it from the floor and holds it stiffly, at an angle away from him. 

Helen is a stout woman. She is Mrs Mycert, but follows him from _Utica_ to the city and bustles around like a common housekeeper. Percival has seen Mycert shrug his shoulders and smile fondly when the upper echelons of society have tried to belittle him for his unusual wife. An active mind and eager strength is no ailment, he says. 

Percival’s not sure what to think. The plight of women like Helen is a little lost on him, if he’s honest. Surely staying in the comfort of the home, with little to do but select embroidery threat suggests a luxurious and distress free life. Percival aims for such a simple pleasure these days. Women like Emily perhaps long for Helen’s life. He isn’t certain.

She brings tea on a silver platter that is too wide for her arm-span, but graciously sets it on the desk with little concern for the doctor’s papers. He puts his chin in his palm and smiles warmly at her. She blushes, before ducking her head in a facsimile of a servant’s etiquette. Percival ignores her. The manner in which she has complicated her social standing and that of his good friend and trusted advisor, makes him uncomfortable. Helen is not offended and leaves, still playacting. Closing the door silently behind her. 

“You don’t believe me.”

Mycert hums low in his throat and picks up the cup of tea that Helen poured between his forefingers and thumbs and blows gently across the hot surface. 

“I’m not- It doesn’t seem right that you should be my friend and treat me with such disregard.”

Mycert has long eyelashes that give him a thoughtful quality that Percival has always been a little envious of. They make him look to be considering the world with great heart. He blinks slowly at Percival’s words. Sets down his teacup. 

“Percy. I must be frank with you.” He steeples his fingers in front of his chest. “It is my professional responsibility to tell you that there is nothing wrong with your leg.” 

The two men stare at one another. Percival stands abruptly and leans heavily on the cane. It is too long for him and he tilts slightly, has to grip the edge of the desk to keep from toppling. He flushes and glares at the floor as he turns to leave. 

The doctor calls after him, “You know this to be true, Percy otherwise you’d not have me come.”

Percival twists at the waist as he reaches the door. “I ask for your attention because I trust your opinion. It doesn’t matter what type of doctor you are.”

In a rare display of unguarded jadedness, Mycert sits back in his chair and spreads his arms wide. “You trust my opinion, but you don’t like what I have to say.”

Percival closes the heavy door behind him with a fierce tug on the brass handle. He shoulders past Helen sweeping in the hallway and blusters his way out. Tamping down the marble stairs, the tip of the cane tiptaping behind him, Percival comes to a hasty pause at the street and breathes in a surge of city air. He leans heavily on the cane, the elaborate ridges of the handle biting into his palm. He had spoken to roughly to Mycert. 

He had known the man a great number of years and it had hurt to see him grow weary of Percival. As though he were just another of his patients at the Utica institute, sick in the head. A fuzzy mind incapable of telling fiction from reality, a weak mind. Delirious at the prospect of the modern world. 

Percival is no such victim. He is grieving. Percival wraps himself up in this word. Bathes in its bleakness and permission to resign from taxing tasks. He is not mad. He has experienced lost. Is suffering a bereavement. Needs time to heal. 

It is too early for drink and so he steps out towards _Broadway_.

\--

“Percival, my dear.” Felix ushers him into the warmth of the shop. “Come, come.” He pats his hand down on the wide marble top of the counter. Reaches forward to clasp Percival by the forearms as Percival perches in a tall saloon seat. His hands are warm even through Percival’s coat. “Percival dearest, let me fetch you something sweet.” He winks. 

Felix is not a young man, but he is tall and slim and if you were to walk behind him you might think his awkward gait was that of an adolescent. His teeth are too small for his head and make his mouth appear much bigger than it is. His gums are a deep red that swill, mudlike against the banks of his minimal enamel. He brings Percival a teacup of steaming chocolate and he sips at it quickly. The burn on his tongue is worth it for the sweet hit in the back of throat, spreading through his chest. 

“You’re a good man, Felix.”

“I am just a man who sells cocoa, Percival.” He is proud of his work. He leans his elbows on the counter. He pinches he pads of his thumbs and forefingers together. “You know what makes it smooth?”

Percival shakes his head. 

“Jus’ a little touch of chilli pepper. Jus’ a little touch. Something hot.” Felix squints as he smiles, teeth peeking. 

Percival has been to dinner at the home of Felix Effray. He imagines that in all truth, Felix the chocolatier would not exist without Mary Agueda Clorinda. Her clothes are in the old style, skirts in white that she tirelessly keeps pristine and large billowy sleeves that give the illusion her hands are slight and tiny rather than swollen with the hard work of raising their four boys. Her manners are better than any Percival has seen in ballrooms, but her darker than chocolate eyes are light with the same childishness as Felix. 

A low thump at the window startles Percival. Hot chocolate sloshes over the stark veins of his hands. Felix instinctively draws a cloth from his apron and blots in over Percival’s skin. “Hush now. It won’t burn. You’re shocked.” At his words, Percival stops his thrashing and realises that the milk has cooled since his first sip and that all he feels is his hand sticking to the cloth. 

He glares out the window, where a girl has her forehead against the glass. The source of the sound. She strokes her fingertips over the pane, in awe of Felix’s display of sweets. She hasn’t even noticed the small commotion she has caused. The man standing next to her is staring at Percival. 

Percival squints at them. They have removed their smocks, but are the brother and sister from the hospital courtyard. They are still holding hands. Felix looks up from where he’s inappropriately smearing the towel under the silver of the signet ring on Percival’s little finger, collecting spilled chocolate. He frowns and waves the towel at the pair. 

The man with gaunt cheeks and the haircut of a boy audaciously goes to open the door of the chocolate shop, eyes never leaving Percival’s gaze. Felix takes a large step from behind his confectionary counter, stomping his foot close to the entryway. The man, reminded of his place in the world closes the door quick. Backs away like a reprimanded cat and flees, the girl in tow. 

“Oh, riffraff. Happens all the time. Silly things. Wandering the streets. Pushing their luck.” 

Percival lets Felix return the cloth to his hands. Dabbing like a nurse at the sticky milk. Allows him to continue rambling. “They’re grown. Grown enough not be making a nuisance like they do. With their pamphlets and their jabbering.”

Percival frowns. 

Felix tucks the towel over the string of his apron. His eyes widen at Percival’s scowl. “The Second Salemers. You’ve never seen them?”

Percivia shakes his head, looks minutely out the window and spies an errant sheet of paper caught in the breezespin of a passing carriage. A man with a wicker basket of glass bottles hoisted on his shoudler, bats at it on his way past.

“Ah, they’re trouble. Police always taking the mother in. She’s a liar.” Felix nods sagely. 

Percival tries not to laugh at his piety. “Lying about what?”

“Spirits. She says she can get the dead to talk.”

Percival stops smirking. The séance woman. He does know. She had accosted him at Theseus’s funeral. He had pushed her to the ground and she had laughed, waved her hands as though convening directly with God and Percvial had hated her. Had wanted her dead. Had wanted to press his boot to the centre of her chest and crush the desperate poverty that lead her to this filthy lie. 

Percival takes Felix’s hands in his and squeezes them gently. “I should go. It’s nearly lunch.”

Felix opens his mouth. Wants to offer truffles. Wants to take Percival upstairs where he knows his wife has a fire warming the home, will have made _pambazo_. Felix’s youngest would want to sit on Percival’s lap and Felix would share thin cigarettes with his aloof friend. It would be nice he thinks. “Well, take care good sir. Take care.”

Outside, a smear of white against the dirty street catches his eye. Tracked by cartwheels, the pamphlet of the Second Salemers glares up at him. It is vicious in its offering. “Hear your loved ones speak again.” His mouth curls and he steps directly on it to turn homeward. 

\--

Emily does not greet him in the hallway. She never does. He removes his coat and sets the cane in the stand. Brushes the top of his hat before placing it on the wall hook. He presses his palm against the wall on his way into the parlour. The dark green leaves of the expensive print, mottled by the sun pouring in from the glass in the front-door, prickle as though real under his fingertips. Blessed sanctuary. 

“Did you forget I was visiting?”

He looks up from the ground, his focus, trying not to drag his leg behind him. Tina stands in cobalt blue. She’s always out of season and it makes his heart ache. He swallows his grimace as he releases the vines, reaches towards her. She steps towards him and briefly kisses his cheek. 

“Come on, sit down, grandfather.” She winks at him and he huffs a laugh. 

Tina has been reading before his arrival. Last week’s _Saturday Evening Post_ is spread across the chaise. He wishes she would get married. Or at least stay with her sister and brother-in-law. Tina is scandalous really and if he thinks to hard on the subject, it angers him greatly. 

He gingerly takes a seat at the garnet red bench, opposing twin to the one Tina is sat on. He leans back and attempts to cross his leg over the other before placing both feet on the ground. To stall, he leans forwards and prods at the fire’s embers with the poker. He sits up and coughs. “How is Newton?”

“He’s well.” She smoothes her dress over her thighs. “He sends his love.”

Percival hums low in the back of his throat. The cuckoo-clock chimes one and his neck snaps, alarmed at the noise. Tina’s face is carefully stoic, but she rises slightly at his sudden movement before settling down again. She clasps her hands in her lap. “Newt says.” She bites her lip. “He says, if you wanted to go to London-“

“I don’t want to go to London.”

“Yes, but. If you felt it was a good idea to go to London-“

“It’s not a good idea.” 

She breathes out a hopeless sigh. She stands and passes before the fireplace. Rubs her fingertips over the elaborately carved mantelpiece. A peacock meets a snake at the centre and she pets his plumage. “How does Doctor Mycert fare?”

“He’s well.”

Tina’s lifts her shoulders and rolls her head back on her neck before putting her hands on her hips. She smiles sadly at him. “I’m glad. I’m glad your doctor is well. Fit as a fiddle is he? What luck.”

She sits heavily down next to him and takes his hands. “We’re going to have soup for lunch. We’re going to walk in Central Park. You’re going to tell me the happiest memory you have of Theseus. I will buy you a bar of chocolate. We will take a carriage home. You will get better.”

She has such conviction. Such belief in the world. Such ambition for good and strength for the impossible. Percival knows that her resolve falters though. If she truly thought it that easy, she would take him to dinner with Newton. She would make him meet Theseus’s eyes in the head of his brother and know that he wouldn’t crumble at the sight. 

\--

That night, Percival sleeps fitfully, unmoored. He dreams of Theseus. Of his blue eyes. Summer blue, clouding grey like the summer they spent on the Devon coast. Theseus pale and scared pacing the parlour, refusing to sit despite the pain in his leg. Wrapped in the embroidered blanket and sweating. Teeth bared to Percival in a determined grin, clinging to his waist. Not wanting to rest. Not wanting to die. 

A seagull squawks and clumsily flies across his vision. He startles awake. The scent of Theseus’s hair in his nose, the weight of Theseus hot cheek on his chest. He feels panic rising like the tide. He pushes the covers away from him and plants his chiled feet on the floor. He leans heavily on he brass bedpost and shuffles to the window. He throws the heavy navy curtains back to find it’s still dark out. He feels like the night is choking him and so he wrenches open the window and leans on the sill. Gulping down great lungfulls of night air. 

Goosebumbs prickle over his arms and pectorals through his cotton nightshirt. He feels foolish. He rubs at his hip. He feels old. He feels bitter. He misses Theseus. His casual comfort. His convivial confidence. He’d swan into any room talking up a storm in his received pronunciation. Would light a long French pipe at inappropriate moments and compliment all the men on their dinner waistcoats. An outstretched index finger nearly brushing a silk rose or shimmering damask close to a button. He was audacious. 

He was never angry about his leg. Never despised the war that left him a limb short. Once out of the hospital, he had hightailed it to New York. He would sit with his bohemian friends and discuss the medical procedure and the advancement of prosthetic technology. Would stain the corners of his mouth with red wine and laugh at the ridiculousness of politics. 

Percival would find him in the bathroom, soaking in the copper bath. Eyes sleepy from the heat and from the pain in his leg. Percival would stroke his hand through the curls at the base of his head and whisper soothing words. About the bird’s nest in the garden, lines from _Whitman_ , his baby brother, Newton and his burgeoning friendship with Percival’s ward and Theseus would smile. Never angry. 

He closes the window and wraps up in his own dressing gown. He spends a long minute thumbing Theseus’s in dark purple, but he puts it away. He slowly heads down two flights of stairs to the kitchen, in the dark he follows his memory. He lights a candle and sits at the table. Heaves a sigh that feels good, expanding out from his chest, out to his shoulders. 

Adjusting to the light, his thumb snags a pamphlet Emily must have left behind. Holding it in front of him, Percival swallows a lump threatening to build in his throat. “They’re waiting for you.” The Second Salemers advertising their wares. Entreating his lonesomeness, feeding off his hungry sadness. He shakily balls it in his fist and refuses to cry. 

As dawn grows, it begins to rain. He allows Emily to make him a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. She ushers him into the sitting room in his dressing gown and lights a fire. She slyly brings out a box of chocolates and with averted eyes places them on the table with a selection of newspapers. She’s trying to settle him. Like a child. 

He doesn’t scoff at her attempts and to some extent relishes in them. He petulantly refuses to dress and spends the afternoon writing correspondence to Dr Mycert sat before the fire instead of in his office. “Aid me in my rehabilitation, sir. I can’t bare you thinking I should accompany you to Utica.” 

\--

Doctor Mycert has prescribed him some pain relief medication, albeit with some trepidation. “I hope it allows you some sleep, Percival,” he says as they walk the long, white corridor of the hospital.

Percival smiles tightly and reminds himself that Doctor Mycert is an old friend. Merely concerned. Not condescending. Not forgetting what Percival has lost. A nurse rushes up to them, demanding the doctor’s attention and so Percival bids him farewell. We’ll have dinner soon. 

He slows his pace. No longer attempting to pretend to not want to lean on the cane. The sight of the long blonde hair of the girl at the doorway of a patient ward catches his attention. It is the girl. “Credence? She’s not very well, is she?”

Her brother, his hands on the rail at the end of the bed, looking down at a sleeping woman. “No, Modesty. She’s not.”

He runs his palm over the scratchy brown blanket before touching the bedspread. He turns towards his sister. He gasps slightly at the sight of Percival and Modesty follows his surprise. She takes a step back and minutely curtsies for Percival's benefit.

Percival shakes his head. Pulls his thick greatcoat closer to him, moves the cane forward. Awkwardly he cranes his shoulders to take a look at the occupant of the bed. A frail sallow faxed woman asleep, like an infant. Prone like a fallen beech tree. It is the wretched Second Salem woman. Her godless testament lain silent.

\--

The laudanum makes him tired, makes him angry at his weakness. Makes him reckless.

He decides to wear his cape. He refuses to be inconspicuous about this. If he’s going, he’s dressing for the evening. A night at the opera. Something by Tremlett, perhaps. 

The girl is wearing a woman’s dress. Her waist has been drawn in tightly, unnaturally and a black lace shawl tatters about her shoulders. Modesty smiles balefully at Percival. The gas-lamps in the hallway burn acidic, mottling her skin and making her tightly braided hair appear waxy. A doll left behind in the orangery at the end of summer. She tucks her chin against her breastbone in curt nod and motions to the parlour. The doorway looms dark and narrow and sets Percival’s nerves jangling. He grips the cane. 

He peers his head through the threshold, reluctant to walk in. The room appears cramped, over cluttered with ugly _flatback_ figurines and shabby books lining the shelves. An imposing standing clock in the Danish style unfortunately ticking five minutes too slow, two arguing overgrown _Maidenhair ferns_ and a large sheet has been tied at the ceiling light fixture and hooked over the curtain rail at the window. 

A gathering of candles on a cracked dinner plate sits in the centre of a round oak table. The arrangement fails to shed much light with which to see by and illuminates unnatural the underside of the congregation’s jaws. Throws ghosts against the against the floral wallpaper and leaks phantom spirits under the rug. 

The brother, Credence is sat at the table, opposite the door. He looks at Percival, head startled by the sound of his footsteps, but quickly looks back down at his spread palms resting on the white linen tablecloth. There is an elderly lady to his left who is already tearful. The younger woman on his right must be her daughter. A lost husband and father. She is attempting to look sad and only looks belligerent with her puckered mouth and sparkling hair adornment. 

Percival cautiously approaches, taking his time, the girl appears behind him, ushering him into a seat at the table. The old woman tucks her wrinkled handkerchief into the cuff of her sleeve and holds her hand out to Percival. He does not kiss it. Her mouth grimaces. She takes Percival to be uncouth.

Modesty folds herself onto a green footstool in the corner. Percival refuses the let the theatre begin. He raps his knuckles on the table between the man’s hands. “You’ll not-”

The man and his sister jump exaggeratedly when a thin, small lady wearing the same dress as her, loudly reopens the door and takes her place next to the glittering, shoulder-shrugging daughter. She has the audacity to take Percival’s fist and hold it as she reaches for the daughter’s pearl studded fingers. She smiles wanly and the group follow suit. Percival has to hang his cane on the back of the _Sheraton_ chair in order to hold the tear-damp hand of the old woman. 

The lady, presumably an older sister, turns to Modesty and smiles wanly before facing Credence. She closes her eyes and tilts her head down. The group shadow her. 

A deep voice fills the room, “We await you. We do not call you by name. Seek unto us should you see fit. Commune with us. Tell us your story.” 

Percival wants to look up and confirm where the voice is coming from. It has a thick cadence and mossy deepness that can’t possibly emanate from the meek, thin young man sat inches from him. He can’t raise his head. His neck feels stiff and cold under the collar of his cape. 

There is a long, dusty silence, which drags Percival to the point of stubbornly fighting the heavy tension that looms about his shoulders and manages to angle his head slightly to his left. Something has his chin juttering back into place, like a snap of fingers close to his earlobe. It sends his spine roiling, but must merely be a trick of the room. Group mentality, like staying quiet in a lecture hall. 

The widow next to him sobs quietly. 

“Si Quis - If Anybody… Have you word for us?”

The sound of an incomprehensible breeze flutters the cloth hanging above them and Percival wants to get up and leave. He does not know these people and he does not owe them anything, least of all his entertainment or his comfort or whatever it is they hoped to provide. His knees feel weak and really it is too much to have this overcome him in such a way. 

He snaps his eyes open and stares directly at the man. The man is pale and his eyes sheer white. No iris or pupil for Percival to meet. In his peripheral vision he sees Modesty stand, her mouth open, but unsure. She looks up at the billowing sheet. 

Percival wrenches his hands free from his partners and tries to get to his feet. The women have slumped back in their chairs. Not asleep, breathing harshly, chests heaving as though the unfelt wind whistling through the overhead canopy were fuelled by their lungs. 

He cannot make sense of the sight before him. He cannot stand. He wants to look at the girl, but he cannot move. She is waving her arms. A silent window-watcher outside the storm. 

Credence’s mouth does not move, but the voice in a rounded whisper, “Wait.” His mirror eye-sockets that Percival cannot look away from. 

A steam drifts from over Credence’s shoulders. Tendrils of cold white air, as though the gale had come to life spreads across the table and strokes Percival’s cheeks, the sides of his neck and circulates, nestles against his chest. Credence’s face blurs and the streaming mist dapples like rain on a pond’s surface. Credence shivers and Percival stays fixed in his seat, but watches as his own body climbs upon the table and on his knees reaches his arms out to take him in his arms. Keep him warm. Keep him dry and warm. 

“You’re safe, Theseus. Safe. No more pain. It’ll be like an eternity of thermal waters. So warm and safe.”

Percival watches passively, himself hug the stranger to him and name him Theseus. 

“What a sight this makes. What show!”

Relieved at a balmy breeze settling around his collarbones and wrapping around his neck like a scarf, he turns and feels a manic laugh build in his chest at Theseus stood next to him, wooden foot missing, leant on his cane. Theseus bends at the waist and lips a scant breath away from Percival’s says, “This is mine.” He stands tall and taps the cane on the floor. The noise ricochets through the room, a bird's broad wing-beat and the candles go out. 

“Well. I do apologise.” The lady is fussing, dragging the tablecloth back from under the candle plate and folding it. Her sister is busy lighting the room’s gas-lamps. Her brother is hovering behind a writing desk, his shoulders are hunched and is looking at the floor. 

The lady is bustling the widow and her daughter towards the hallway. “Normally, we at least receive a response from the spirits. They’re quite talkative.” Her eyes flick towards Percival and her eyes narrow. “Sometimes, they know when they’re not welcome.” Modesty scampers after her. 

From his seat, Percival hears the four of them putter along the corridor. They are welcome to come again next week, free of charge. The lady is sure the spirits will want to give them word of their kind man. 

He breathes in a great sigh and shakes his head. He gingerly rises. He leans heavily on the table. He looks at the man. “What are you?”

The man does not look up. “Just a man, sir.”

Percival lifts one hand from the table, and closes his fingers against his open palm, flicks his wrist towards himself. “Come.” He taps the table gently. “Come close.”

Edging around the desk, Credence steps towards Percival. He stands close and waits. “I don’t have my cane, Credence. You must help me to the door.”

“Yes, sir.”

Percival takes Credence’s elbow and together they pad carefully towards the entryway. Percival can feel Credence’s tender bones through his thin dinner jacket. Percival’s cloak sways lazily behind them. The blanket of an old man. He clears his throat and turns to face Credence. Credence has brown eyes. They are not calm, they skitter with an unkempt anger or fear, Percival cannot tell. 

He cups Credence’s face in his hands and stills those eyes. Under worried brows they tell him nothing of what be thinks he just experienced. That this boy of the Lazarus has something to say. A witchcraft that his false prophet mother could never imagine.

Credence looks away. "Sir?"

Percival’s fingertips knead the back of Credence's neck as he pulls away and tries to draw up straight, hand still clenched around Credence's shoulder. Angled towards the door, he minutely nods his head. Credence pulls his hand away and again takes his elbow. At Credence's opening of the Percival grimaces a low hiss.

"I'll walk with you, sir. To the street rail." Percival looks apprehensive. "And beyond." 

The night is clear. Miasma lifted, but the smell of coal fires lingers in the air. A road away, at the junction, Credence pauses awaiting Percival’s decision to alight the trolley or continue walking. Percival grips his elbow a little tighter, the spring chill is growing with the lateness of the hour. He points forward. 

Percival’s spine aches. His hand empty of the cane, tremors. He holds onto the boy for fear of his leg betraying so that he’ll never rise again. He can still feel the weighted white fog. He shakes his head. The leg lags behind, stiff, unwieldy without the cane to set the path. How Theseus hated the cane. How Percival had it topped with the beautiful embellished bird, just to get Thesesus to try to use it.   
“Look,” Credence says. “A cat.” He grins unabashedly at the ball of black fur disappearing into a wooden crate and it unending noisily. The creature continues rooting through the bakery’s evening trash and Credence laughs quietly. Percival raises an eyebrow. A hungry niffler, he thinks. Clumsily confident in the dark of the city. 

He looks at Credence, his face transformed, unburdened in the secret of the night-time street. Close together like this, Percival can feel his body shaking with unexpected giggles. 

Theseus had a wild laugh. Playfully, gracelessly dragging his foot behind him. How he still smelt of London and not New York. His presence still seeped in the pores of Percival’s house. 

He rummages in his pocket for his key and thrusts it to Credence to open the door. The hall lamps are dark and so Emily is asleep. Percival releases Credence and seizes the low curve of the wall-hook. He shrugs his cloak off and with his arms free again, turns to take Credence’s shoulder.

Credence, a few paces away, has his head angled to the ceiling. Percival presses his palm against the wall and shuffles towards the hall table, the gothic lines of oak comfort him and he lights the modest tin candelabra kept there. Credence turns at the illumination. “He’s yours.”

Percival’s brow furrows. His head hurts and he wants nothing more than to go to bed and forget he ever let the Second Salemers worm their way into his life. Credence rushes towards Percival and clutches the lapels of his coat. “Good grief, young man-“

“Shhh.” Credence pulls him forward, his eyes are roving unseeing, the whites bared to Percival. He takes Percival’s hands in his. He closes his eyes. Hesitantly, but instinctively Percival does the same. 

His breathing stutters in his throat, before whistling like a kettle. His chest feels calm, the knot of tears constantly there, ebbing. His hearing feels full, like he’s stood at the seashore. The waves crashed loudly at the surf. His back feels warm, summer sun oozing through his bones, soothing his leg. 

“You are the silliest man, Percival Graves.”

Percival wants to open his eyes, but he cannot. “Here you are, foolish thing. Allowing the riff-raff into our home.”

He feels Credence’s fingertips trickle over his pulse. “Soft-hearted, dear thing.”

Percival’s ears burn with the embarrassment that only such tender words can bring in the company of strangers. “You must say thank you to kind Credence.”

A kiss at his earlobe. “Say thank you.

A kiss at his cheek. “Thank you, Percival.”

A gull squalls. A sea breeze brushes his chin. He blinks in quick succession. Eyelashes like ink spots on a zoetrope. The candles’ halo of light is diluted by the dawn streaming in from the glass in the door. Credence smiles at him and leans forward to place a careful press of lips on his.


End file.
